By Nikki Tishler, SIECUS Federal Policy and Communications Fellow

June 26, 2013 marked a historic day when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on two same-sex marriage cases. In a 5-4 ruling on United States v. Windsor, the court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on the grounds of equal protection. Shortly after, the court ruled 5-4 that the defendants in Hollingsworth v. Perry have no standing in the court. Hollingsworth v. Perry considered the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, “Prop 8,” banning same-sex marriage and the court ruling effectively reinstated legalized same-sex marriage in California.

In United States v. Windsor, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. The case was brought by Edie Windsor, represented by the ACLU and the law firm Paul Weiss, challenging Section 3 of DOMA which required her to pay $363,000 in estate taxes after her partner and spouse of over 40 years passed away.[1] Had she been in a heterosexual marriage, she would not have had to pay the estate tax.

In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote:

DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty. It imposes a disability on the class by refusing to acknowledge a status the State finds to be dignified and proper. DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others. The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”[2]